Assisted GPS Built Into Sim Cards

The humble SIM card hasn't undergone the greatest of changes compared to the revolutionary steps made by the handsets it resides in, but now here's a turn up for the books...

Catapulting the sim into the 21st century today (from possibly the 16th/17th?) is German smart card specialist Sagem Orga (not to be confused with the French budget handset maker) which has teamed up with BlueSky Positioning to provide a card with integrated A-GPS.

"The SIM is entering a new era where it can now be considered as a real service platform and a valuable device," said François Blanchard, Global Account Marketing Manager at Sagem Orga. "The A-GPS enabled SIM card will reshape the way SIM card are perceived by MNOs and end-users."

"We're delighted to be working with Sagem Orga to bring our exciting technology to market," said BlueSky CEO Risto Savolainen. "This announcement takes our patented technology out of the lab and puts it into the hands of millions of consumers around the world."

Of course commercial availability is nice but given this will be targeted at lower handsets without the increasingly common GPS aboard in the first place those handsets will need to have apps capable of taking advantage of it - whether that be Java based Google Maps or basic web access. Then there's all those global telco negotiations...

So as cool as this tech is in theory, in practice I suspect there's still some way to go yet.